The most powerful tool in aligning employees to the organization’s strategic priorities is…. THE MONEY!

Organizational Strategy is by design and necessity, a top-down exercise. It’s impossible to involve thousands of employees spread out in disparate continents, time-zones and cultures in order to get their perspective and input, however so valuable it may be. Now, when the time comes for execution, this becomes the biggest obstacle in rallying the troops. Lack of input almost always ensures lack of buy in.

Over the last 10 years, Business Analytics has become a buzzword. Pioneered by companies like General Electric, Walmart, American Express, Netflix, Amazon, etc., it has today spread across industries and become the cornerstone of many companies. Companies are using analytics in making data driven business decisions to accelerate business impact.

The most talked about areas in Analytics today are Business Intelligence (BI), Big Data, Visualization, Data Mining, Predictive Modeling and Optimization. But another, equally important area in Analytics, ‘Research’ has seldom been spoken about much.